“They won’t let you sleep. The horses’ hoofs make such a noise. They might employ bicycles instead of horses.”
The night passed like a nightmare for many. It seemed to grip all life with a cold apprehensiveness, and burdened one’s soul with a hate towards the earthly life which suffered agony from its bondage to the flaming, exultant Dragon. Why did he exult? Was it because we beings of the earth are evil and cruel, and love to torment, to see drops of blood and tears?
Our dark, earthly nature is suffused with a cruel voluptuousness. Such is the imperfection of the human breed that a single human vessel contains all the deepest ecstasies of love and all the lowest delights of lust, and the mixture is poisoned with shame and with pain—and with the desire for shame and pain. From one fountain come both the gladdening raptures and the gladdening lusts of the passions. We torment others only because it gives us joy.
After the agonies on the way from the wood, after a search had been made, many of the prisoners were dispatched to prison. Others were set free.
A restless, sluggish, and unfriendly morning rose over the city. From the wood, just beyond the town, came the half-pleasant, half-disagreeable odour of a forest fire.
The news about the two dead victims, Kiril and another workman, Kliukin, a family man, soon spread. Their comrades were excited.
The corpses had been taken to the mortuary of the town hospital. A large crowd, grave, silent, and resolute in mood, had gathered quite early near the mortuary. It mostly consisted of labouring men, and their wives and children. The large square in front of the hospital, with its dirty, unpaved spots, its trampled grass, its grey, gloomy little shops, appeared oppressed by an atmosphere of early morning fatigue. The slant rays of the rising Dragon, veiled with a light mist, fell upon the scowling faces of the crowd as indifferently as upon the fence or the closed gates. The Ancient Dragon is not our sun.
The faces of those who stood near the closed gates were scowling. No one was permitted to enter the hospital. Within, preparations were going on for a secret burial of the victims. Tumultuous voices of anger rose in the crowd.
A detachment of Cossacks soon appeared on the scene. They came on quickly, and paused near the crowd. The beautiful smooth horses trembled sensitively. The riders were handsome, sun-burnt, black-eyed, and black-browed; their black hair, not cut in the military fashion, was visible from under their high hats. The women in the crowd looked at them now and then with involuntary admiration.